Jase2985: how do you issue points via a speed camera If you cant prove who was driving?

my son could be 10 points from being disqualified and I could say it was me driving, there is no proof of that

Easy. The points always go to the car owner unless they can prove someone else was driving.

but how can you prove that? its something that can lead to someone loosing their liscence

guilty until proven innocent, not the way it is suppose to work

It's really simple. Many countries manage to do it and I am sure NZ can do so too.

1) YOU the car owner are responsible for what happens to your car. This includes speeding.

2) The ticket arrives addressed to you. You can fill it is saying "Not me - My wife/son/daughter/neighbour" AND IF YOU LIE YOU COMMIT PERJURY

3) The person you said was driving gets the ticket. They can defend it if they choose and one defence could be "I wasn't driving - he was" in which case the court will decide which of you is a lying toe rag

4) Most modern cameras photograph the driver and passenger. This makes lying a lot harder!

and how can you prove they lied? there is no practical way to do that.

the letter you currently get requires you to sign to say it wasnt you but also requires a JP/sworn officer etc to also counter sign.

and a photo proves nothing, the people who take the photos and issue the tickets have no clue whos in the car.

demerit points will make it so some of the more dodgy people end up shuffling the points round to people who have less points so they wont end up over the 100 point limit.

adds more administrive overhead to the process, and more cost to the police force who already dont have enough money.

Rikkitic: Can't help wondering what would happen in court if the driver and passenger had each been wearing a mask of the other's face and denied being the one responsible.

The judge would simply fine both of them for lying to the court I suspect. Possibly even imprison them for perjury. You all seem to think that these things have never been tried! The system works very well.

Combined with the fact that speeding offences will add rapidly to your insurance bill in pretty much every country other than NZ, it becomes clearer why the death rates in NZ are higher than they should be. Bad roads, bad driver education, poor attitude, little or no consequences and so on.

Interesting that so many think that the sensible thing to do is to attempt to find ways to outsmart the law instead of just not speeding....

This is from an article in a UK paper (Note with reference to penalty points (demerit points here) you will lose your licence when you get 12 points, not 100):

"When a car is caught on a speed camera, the police will find out the address of the owner from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and send them a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) and a request to provide driver details in the post. The NIP and the request to provide driver details are two different legal documents but the almost always appear on the same piece of paper. If you’re the owner, you’ll receive this, even if you weren’t the one driving at the time.

If that’s the case, you can fill out a part of the NIP which allows you to notify the police of the name and address of the person who was driving at the time. Be aware, however, that doing so falsely is an offence in itself, and can lead to a prison sentence for perverting the course of justice (or, at the very least, a prosecution for failing to provide driver details, which carries a minimum six-point penalty or a disqualification from driving).

If you were the driver at the time, however, and you accept that you were at fault, you send your details back, at which point the police will either send you an an offer to attend a speed awareness course, a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) or a court summons, depending on how fast you were going.

If you agree that you were driving but you dispute that you were speeding then you should reply to the police admitting that you were driving. Then if the police offer a speed awareness course or a fixed penalty you should not accept. The police will send a postal requisition (used to be called a court summons) and you'll have to take your case to the magistrates.

If you are caught by an officer in person, however, he or she will either issue you with an FPN, or advise you that you will receive a court summons, depending on the severity of your offence. You don’t have to accept the FPN – indeed, you have 28 days to reject it – but if you do reject it, you will have to go to court to plead your case. "

Followed by (double the numbers to get approx NZ$ figures for the fines)

"What’s the penalty?

An FPN for speeding will result in three points on your driving licence and a £100 fine.

However, if your speed was sufficiently high to land you in court – or if you reject the FPN – the penalties could be much worse; the maximum fine for speeding is £1,000 (or £2,500 on the motorway), and your licence could be revoked."

The Police trot out the local ESR?? certification that the Stalker is accurate to 1km/h. The manufacturer's claim is for " +1, -2 mph stationary, ±2 mph moving +2 / –3 km/h stationary, ±3 km/h moving" The difference may be explained in the specs for Stalker's photo unit where the accuracy of the radar section is quoted as 1km/h in LABORATORY conditions and 3km/h in operating conditions.

The Police trot out the local ESR?? certification that the Stalker is accurate to 1km/h. The manufacturer's claim is for " +1, -2 mph stationary, ±2 mph moving +2 / –3 km/h stationary, ±3 km/h moving" The difference may be explained in the specs for Stalker's photo unit where the accuracy of the radar section is quoted as 1km/h in LABORATORY conditions and 3km/h in operating conditions.

Interesting thanks. I was under the impression that for most measurement systems, error is a % rather than absolute value so e.g. 2% would translate into errors of 0.2 km/h and 2 km/h at speeds 10 and 100 km/h, respectively. This makes more sense to me than e.g. absolute 3 km/h for all speeds, which would suggest pretty large error at lower speeds e.g. 30% at 10 km/h. But then I don't know much about speed measurement science. The other factor is that car speedos aren't necessarily well calibrated to e.g. wheel diameter.

You dont need a Drivers license to own a Car so dermerits to the owner would have no effect on them, fines are better. You can use a birth certificate to rego a owner of a car the people at the vinz center just glance at them and check if the name you filled in matches and are rushed at busy times to really examine it to check if its real ID.

Also interesting is that it's not likely to be absolute. Measurement tends to be statistical... e.g. 95% of readings will be within 3kph of what the actual speed is. There will always be some outliers where some combination of speed, RF noise, reflections, interference, etc causes a spurious reading.

I wonder what percentage (or how many Std Deviations) actually lie within the +/-3kph range.

I also wonder how that varies with distance... at short range with a strong return, I'd expect to get a much more accurate reading than at a distance where the S/N ratio is marginal.

Interesting that so many think that the sensible thing to do is to attempt to find ways to outsmart the law instead of just not speeding....have to take your case to the magistrates.

I think part of the problem is perception. Often, the law is an ass. Using penalties to correct driver behaviour is necessarily a blunt instrument, but it is also often incompetently applied by the authorities. A good example is the many, many instances where a 30 km/h roadworks limit is left in place long after it is needed, and sometimes when it is not needed at all. As a result, drivers stop taking these notices seriously and tragedies can and do happen on the rare occasions when the sign actually means what it says.

In other cases, drivers have their own perception of what is an appropriate speed for the conditions. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are not. But when the authorities do not live up to their responsibility to set reasonable limits and adjust them as necessary, it is hard to blame drivers for failing to respect them. The police act like the law is a one-way street, and in a sense it is, but in a larger sense they and other authorities also have a moral duty to ensure that law enforcement is seen to be fair and reasonable by those who get caught. Yes, a few will always feel hard done by but I am talking about normal people who can tell when they are in the wrong and accept it.

I would like to know what the statistics are for speed crashes within 10 km/h of the limit. I suspect, but don't know, that most serious crashes occur at much higher speeds. In that case, ticketing someone for going 4 or 10 km/h over the limit isn't going to make much difference. Oh, right. Isn't that the situation we have now?